


It's Really Cold

by colourfulpaints



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Gen, PTSD, Sleepovers, its sad again im sorry, suicide talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 20:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5429597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colourfulpaints/pseuds/colourfulpaints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys have a late night talk</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Really Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by an actual conversation I had with friends at 3am

“How close have you been?” Dick sat up only to fold himself in half resting his head on his shins. He always ended up in weird positions when they talked about anything close to emotions.

Tim sat cross legged at the foot of the king sized bed chewing on a gummy bear. Jason lay on his side, head propped up by the headboard and a pillow, and Damian was face down in the blankets, the occasional comment to the conversation the only indicator of his consciousness. They had all decided to go back to one of Dick’s safe houses instead of the manor. It had been a long time that the four of them had had anything close to a “sleepover” and bonding over snack food at 3 in the morning was always a crowd favorite.

“Suicide, you mean?” Tim asked, taking another one of the candies.

Dick nodded, his head still on his shins, holding his feet with his hands and stretching his back. Jason chuckled humorlessly.

“I guess we’ve all been standing on a balcony 20 stories up and thought about what it would be like to just drop.” Tim fiddled a green gummy bear between his fingers but didn’t eat it, “I don’t know. I think about that a lot. How I’m sore and tired and sad and just think about letting it all go. Feeling the rush of air and then the end. Normally rooftop patrol and flying through the air calms me down. Sometimes I just want to miss the roof.”

Damian lifted his head and turned it to look at Tim.

“Drake I never pegged you as an impulsive one. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was a little scared. If it would actually be peaceful. And I don’t think I could do that to Bruce. After ja-”, He stopped and turned to look at Jason, remembering he was there, “after you died, he was a mess. I don’t think I would put him through that again.”

“He managed to get over me.” Jason was brusque.

“But you died in the line of duty. You were fighting. You gave everything for the job. I would just be giving up because I was tired.”

There was a moment of silence.

“It was only ever because I was angry”, Damian spoke up. Dick turned to face him, and eyebrow raised in surprise. He hadn’t expected the youngest to join in the conversation.

“I was angry at father, angry at my mother. I felt forced into my life, that everything was already there for me, that there was no escape. That after Bruce died, or I wasn’t Robin anymore that there would be nothing left. That I might as well give up. I guess I was too much of a coward of the unknown to give in. That or I calmed down.”

There was more silence. Dick moved to place his arm over Damian’s, their hands joined loosely.

“I guess it’s different for me.” Jason sat up, drawing his knees to his chest, “I know what it’s like to be dead.”

“What’s it like?” Dick’s voice was very quiet.

“It’s really cold.”

“Do you remember it?” Tim set down the gummy bear.

Jason’s death was a touchy subject, and nobody ever talked about it unless he was already making jokes about being a zombie or some such thing. Nobody except Talia and Roy had ever asked him if he remembered it.

“It was dark. Cold. I felt very empty. There was nothing. And that’s good and bad I guess. And I guess if you died and didn’t come back you wouldn’t be able to remember it. So it’s nothing.

“And to answer your question Dickie I have gotten very close many times to killing myself. I always have guns around and it’s very very tempting. Because of what I did while training. Because of what I did to you guys. Because of all of the lives I have taken. Because all of the people who have suffered because of me. Because sometimes the PTSD gets too bad and I can’t break out of a flash back. Because of who I became after I died. Because I wasn’t a good enough Robin and I couldn’t make Bruce happy. I couldn’t live up to the golden boy wonder.”

Dick sat up and shifted, moving to lean closer to Jason.

“I don’t blame you Dick. It was me.”

“Still. I’m sorry that you felt that way.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m done trying to prove myself to him.”

“That’s good”, Tim spoke up, “because first off, you are good and don’t need to prove yourself to anybody. Second, Bruce has no idea how demanding he is, he doesn’t deserve your energy.”

“I agree” Damian mumbled, his face back in the blankets.

They were all quiet for another minute, just being there together.

“What about you Dick” Jason asked placing his head on the other’s shoulder.

He didn’t respond right away.

“I get flashbacks too. Sometimes they’re worse. Sometimes they’re about the circus. Being a little kid in that life isn’t the best thing. After my parents died”, he stopped, taking a breath, and squinting his eyes shut, remembering a time gone by, “but before Bruce took me in. It was bad. I had nothing. I had no protection in the camp. I strung myself up in the trapeze one night. I hung myself. It hurt a lot. The rope was old, and it broke. I fell and missed the net and broke my ankle. I lived. The next day Bruce came and picked me up.

“I know that as Robin and now Nightwing, I do a lot of terrible things. I see a lot of terrible things. And I have nightmares and panic attacks and stuff. The terrors of the job don’t NOT make me want to end it all sometimes, to just go to sleep forever. But that’s the closest I got.”

They sat there again in silence. Soft pattering of rain outside.

“I’m really cold,” Tim announced before flopping over Jason and Dick. He curled up between them and they relaxed. Cuddling wasn’t something that anybody had planned on, but it was happening. Even Damian inched closer, ending with his head resting on Dick’s shoulder. They talked some more into the night, the sun rising before anybody fell asleep, snoring in a pile of bodies until well into the afternoon. Nobody would ever call what happened a sleepover, but emotional talks at 3:00 AM definitely fit the description

 

 


End file.
